Up to now, Sprint has been the only carrier that have plans to move to LTE 4G at some point in the future, choosing to stick with WiMAX for its 4G instead. That may change in the future, however, as Sprint CEO Dan Hesse has stated that Sprint has been considering a move to LTE some time in the future. Hesse also said that Sprint and Clearwire do have enough spectrum to deploy both WiMAX and LTE. If true, Sprint's move to LTE could add credence to the rumors that Sprint and T-Mobile may merge at some point in the future. A merger of the two carriers would be quite difficult right now consider that Sprint uses a CDMA network while T-Mobile is a GSM carrier. When asked about a possible merger, Hesse wouldn't get into specifics but said that there was some "logic" to the idea. Hesse explained:
"I don't see a need to scale larger, but if there's an acquisition that makes sense for us, I do want to have a balance sheet that would give me the flexibility of making good acquisitions when we see them."
Considering how many subscribers Sprint and T-Mobile have when compared to AT&T and Verizon, a merger would definitely make sense if they want to catch up to the leading two carriers. However, both carriers would have to have a solid LTE network in place beforehand. If they attempted a merger right now, with Sprint on CDMA and WiMAX and T-Mobile on GSM and HSPA+, it could be a nightmare for both the customers and the carriers.
Via MobileBurn
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